Reverse stock splits are rare. Why GE took the leap.

Reverse spreads like the one executed by General Electric on Monday don’t happen every day. GE was only the fifth S&P 500 company to try one since 2012, said Howard Silverblatt, senior analyst at the S&P Dow Jones Indices. The industrial conglomerate suffered a reverse split of 1 to 8, meaning investors got one stock for every eight held. From the teen low before the reverse split, the stock was trading at $ 104 on Friday.

GE CEO Larry Culp’s goal was a higher share price, more in line with his peers, who have …